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Investigators say they've finally identified the Zodiac Killer

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Re: Investigators say they've finally identified the Zodiac Killer

#161

Post by nhumrich »

davidholdeman wrote: post #145
gremloni wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone else have issues with identifying and describing facial features. I have no problems recognizing people, but there’s no way I can verbalize them on a specific features basis. What kind of disorder do I have?

I don't know whether your experience is similar to mine, but I can't visualize faces at all, even of someone I have just been looking at. I have no issues recognizing people or visualizing things other than faces, so neither aphantasia nor prosopagnosia match.

Aphantasia is a spectrum.

Re: Investigators say they've finally identified the Zodiac Killer

#162

Post by kordlessagain »

austinjp wrote: post #133
gremloni wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone else have issues with identifying and describing facial features. I have no problems recognizing people, but there’s no way I can verbalize them on a specific features basis. What kind of disorder do I have?

Have a search for "aphantasia" and see if your experience matches.

Unfortunately, "aphantasia" is now labeled as "the inability to voluntarily create a mental picture in your head". That's from Google.

The primary problem with this label is that this could include some people who see involuntary imagery (like people), but don't do what is essentially creative visualization. For those people, they "know" the experience of seeing things in mind.

Then there are the rest of us "aphants" that don't ever see images internally, at all. For the people I've found with this ability I would say none of them could hear things internally either. Not everyone has the ability to "rehear" things.

I spent a lot of years asking people about how they saw things internally and it just got weirder the more I asked. Eventually, I just decided that everyone thinks differently, with various "side models" that allow them to see, hear, think and even smell things that aren't real.

Re: Investigators say they've finally identified the Zodiac Killer

#163

Post by anigbrowl »

Finally identifying the Zodiac killer is something of an approximately annual ritual by now

See also: Voynich manuscript secrets finally revealed, who was DB Cooper, etc. etc.

Mainstream journalists love these articles because it's a way to recycle an old story while only adding 1 or 2 details and a quote, knowing devotees will jump on and amplify it.

Re: Investigators say they've finally identified the Zodiac Killer

#164

Post by webmaven »

gremloni wrote: post #146
bradrn wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d say it sounds more like prosopagnosia.

I doubt it’s either of those. I can recognize a person at a distance but ask me to describe if their nose bridge is wider or narrower and I literally wouldn’t be able to tell you unless it’s significantly exaggerated.

The question should be, if shown an example nose drawing could you say whether the bridge should be wider or narrower?

Or if shown two noses with different width bridges, can you point to the one that is closer to being right?

Police sketch artist scenes in movies and TV shows are incredibly abbreviated compared to reality, which often features a lot more iteration and discarded sketches precisely because a lot of people are in the "I'll know it when I see it" group.

Re: Investigators say they've finally identified the Zodiac Killer

#165

Post by partiallypro »

aquova wrote: post #33

So two new pieces of evidence are offered up by this article, firstly that Zodiac was identified by several witnesses as having a forehead scar, including being drawn on the famous sketch of him, which matches a scar Poste had at the time. Secondly, some sort of new solution to the cipher is possible by omitting Poste's full name in some way. As exciting as it would be, I always take these claims about famous cases b…

No one ever said he had forehead scars though, if he did...he'd be much easier to identify.

Re: Investigators say they've finally identified the Zodiac Killer

#166

Post by _jal »

tacocataco wrote: post #110
Ansil849 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The local PD is also refusing to do DNA tests which would resolve the issue. Yeah, mean ol' law enforcement, refusing to do DNA tests for any crank mystery squad solving team that demands them.

If the group wants to incurr the costs what does it matter?

Because if they start doing it, they'll get more requests to do it in the future. And then they'd have to make more process around it and pay people to execute that process, and then they're in the business of selling small bits of criminal evidence to random cranks.

Re: Investigators say they've finally identified the Zodiac Killer

#167

Post by partiallypro »

koboll wrote: post #113
aquova wrote: post #33

So two new pieces of evidence are offered up by this article, firstly that Zodiac was identified by several witnesses as having a forehead scar, including being drawn on the famous sketch of him, which matches a scar Poste had at the time. Secondly, some sort of new solution to the cipher is possible by omitting Poste's full name in some way. As exciting as it would be, I always take these claims about famous cases b…

The guy REALLY looks like the police sketches too. Almost perfectly the same, except for maybe a slight difference in nose width.

The police sketch is from a 2 children that watched from across the street at night. I have never believed the sketch is accurate. The sketch also shows a skinnier person but everyone described him as a bit overweight.

Re: Investigators say they've finally identified the Zodiac Killer

#168

Post by outworlder »

kordlessagain wrote: post #162
austinjp wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have a search for "aphantasia" and see if your experience matches.

Unfortunately, "aphantasia" is now labeled as "the inability to voluntarily create a mental picture in your head". That's from Google. The primary problem with this label is that this could include some people who see involuntary imagery (like people), but don't do what is essentially creative visualization. For those people, they "know" the experience of seeing things in mind. Then there are the rest of us "aphants"…

> Then there are the rest of us "aphants" that don't ever see images internally, at all.

What about remembering things that you have already seen? Let's say I ask you to watch, for example, the Star Trek TNG opening sequence. Can you "rewatch" it?

I can. I can also sort of picture 'creative' images, to an extent.

However, conjuring up faces of people I've met is pretty difficult. Even my dog, which I find easier than people, can still take different shapes that are not real and I can't 'fix' it until I look at her again. If it is a person that I've only seldom met, I won't be able to recall the face at all, even if I can still recognize the person. It doesn't matter that I met the person a minute ago - if I don't make a very conscious effort to remember, I probably won't recognize them at all (and will definitely not recall the image). If I am under stress, that's even worse.

I've always chalked that up to 'being bad with faces', but there maybe something more at play, it seems.

Re: Investigators say they've finally identified the Zodiac Killer

#169

Post by e9 »

jwuphysics wrote: post #132
gremloni wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone else have issues with identifying and describing facial features. I have no problems recognizing people, but there’s no way I can verbalize them on a specific features basis. What kind of disorder do I have?

I think that's fairly typical for people who aren't used breaking down images into their constituent parts. In the language of computer vision, it would be like saying that our visual cortexes don't need to know how to segment a face into detailed descriptions of eyes, a nose, a mouth, etc., in the same way as it is necessary to be able to segment a wolf from a forest scene. But it can also be trained. See, e.g., Dra…

Thank you for the book recommendation. My internal visual system is impaired unless I’m on certain drugs. I’m super excited to hear it can be trained.
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